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The German White Book 

(The ONLY Authorized Translation) 



C It telU how Russia and her ruler 
betrayed Germany's confidence and 
thereby caused the European w^ar. 

C It explains how^ this Franco-German 
conflict might have been avoided. 

C And in the appendix the official 
communique anent negotiations be- 
tween Prince Lichnowsky and Sir 
Edward Grey, will be found. 



There are 32 pages in this new and vitally 
interesting book caUed " The German 
White Book." Every peige is of absorb- 
ing interest. For example: Do you know 
that for the third time in the last six years 
Servia has led Europe to the brink of a world- 
war? This book tells how. Wouldn't it 
interest you to know more about the secret 
mobilization of Russia prior to the declaration 
of war? Then order this book now— Price, 
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There are many original lelegranu and 
notes included in the pages of " The 
German White Book." It would be impos- 
sible to find a more authentic, truthful and 
actual account of the cause of this great and 
unfortunate European conflict. You need 
this book. Read the first page and you'll 
lose yourself completely to your surroundings. 



Remember the price is only lO Cents 



THE FATHERLAND 



1123 BROADWAY 
NEW YORK 



Dr. BERNHARD DERNBURG 

Startled the world by his administration of Germany's Colonial Possessions. 
Dr. Dernburg's tremendously able replies made to the enemies of the 
fatherland has startled all thinking people and will shortly be issued in 
pamphlet form. These powerful pleas for Germany's cause were like 
the shots of the mighty German siege guns and with equal thoroughness 
demolished their house of lies. Dr. Dernburg's articles have created a 
sensation everywhere. They are perhaps the most important contribu- 
tions to the literature of this war. We have collected these great argu- 
ments together and because we want everj'one to read Dr. Dernburg's 
impressive appeal will retail this booklet for 

ONLY lO CENTS 

Send your order NOW and be sure that you will receive one. Any one 
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let ten cents stand between you and the satisfaction you will derive from 
reading Dr. Dernburg's writings. 



THE FATHERLAND 

1 1 23 Broadway 



New York 



GERMANY AND THE WAR 

Not a Defense but an Explanation 



— BY 




DR. BERNHARD DERNBURG 

Late Colonial SecreUiy of tha Genoaii Empire 

POPULAR EDITION 

ISSUED BY 

THE FATHERLAND 

A Weekly devoted to Fair Play for GERMANY AND AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 
1123 Broadway, New York City 



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INTRODUCTION 

Little need be said to introduce Dr. Bernhard Dcrn- 
burg to the American public beyond the high com- 
mendation contained in an editorial introduction io one 
of the articles herein presented which appeared in the 
New York "Sun" of September /j, ipi4, as follows: 

"Hcrr Bernhard Dcrnburg, the author of this article 
{'The Causes of the War'), ivas recently the German 
Secretary of State for the Colonies. He is one of the 
most prominetrt Germans in this country to-day. Herr 
Dernburg received his early business training in New 
York, and his selection by the Kaiser in ipo6 as the 
head of the Colonial Office, to succeed Prince von 
Hohenlohe-Langenburg, zvas one of the sensations of 
the Empire, critics ascribing it to 'the Kaiser's impulsive 
erase for Americanism. The public generally approved 
the appointment and he became in a day the strong 
man of the Government. 

"The following article was submitted to Prof. IViUiam 
M. Sloane, former Roosevelt professor in Berlin Uni- 
versity, and was defined by him as a very fair and 
adequate presentation of the German point of view." 

The various articles zvere contributed at intervals to 
the Nezv York "Sun," "Tim.es" and other papers, with 
the exception of Mr. Marshall's article, printed in the 
form of an interview with the distinguished German 
statesman shortly after his arrival in America. 

Frederick F. Schrader. 



GERMANY AND THE WAR 



GERMANY, A NATION OF PEACE 



Record of Forty-three Years — Covets No Foreign Territory — Beneficent Rule 
of African Colonies — No Shot Fired in Generation 



By Edward Marshall. 



The following article is from the pen of Mr. Edzvard 
Marshall and was printed in the New York "Times" of 
September 6, 1914, a fciv days after Dr. Dernburg's 
arrival in the United States In the interest of the Red 
Cross Society. 



That Germany has no ambition toward colonial 
extension, despite the assertions of her enemies to the 
contrary, was, as far as international politics go, the 
most important statement made to me by her late Sec- 
retary of State for the Colonies, Herr Bernhard Dem- 
burg, who, next to the Ambassador, who last Sunday 
expressed his views at length in the Times, ranks as 
the most noteworthy German in the United States at 
present. 

He spoke with authority and interest upon Germany's 
colonial policy in relation to her present exterior pos- 
sessions, and, more especially, detailed the plans of the 
Red Cross for the care of the sick and wounded who 
will soon become the greatest of the mighty conflict's 
problems. Inasmuch as his visit to the United States 
was undertaken for the purpose of enlisting the good 
will of the American nation in this humanitarian work, 
his utterances upon this subject are of especial interest. 

He knows this country well, and declares himself 
proud that he secured here his business education. 

His tutors may well be proud of their distinguished 
pupil, for, before gaining his political honors, which 
have been many and distinguished, he had been a figure 
of considerable eminence in the European financial 
world, having been an important figure in the Deutsche 
Bank, Germany's greatest financial institution, and pres- 
ident of the Berlin Bank of Commerce and Industry, a 
vastly important organization with forty-five millions 
capital. 

In 1906 he was appointed by the Emperor director in 
the Imperial Ofiice of Foreign Affairs, and, when he be- 
came Imperial Secretary of State for the Colonies, he 
held the post for four full years. This at the time was 
an important post in the German Cabinet and imposed 
upon Herr Dernburg the duty of the creation of the 
Ministry. 

He is now a Privy Councilor and was made a life 



member of the Prussian House of Lords last year. So 
he speaks with high authority upon any subject which 
he may choose to discuss. 

He is best known to Germany, however, as a philan- 
thropist and promoter of advanced sociological science, 
which explains his deep interest in the work of the Red 
Cross. 

Since quitting public office he has divided his time 
about equally between colonial work and the study of 
tenement house conditions. He is President of the Ber- 
lin Association for the Housing of the Poor. He is an 
honorary Doctor of Laws in the University of Konigs- 
berg and of Political Economy in the University of 
Munich. 

Puzzled at American Attitude. 

I found him, as I had found the (ierman Ambassador, 
very greatly puzzled by the extent of anti-German feel- 
ing in the United States, very firmly of the opinion that 
his nation has been sadly misrepresented in the pub- 
lished accounts of events in Belgium, very much dis- 
tressed, but very far from dismayed, by the fact that 
unforeseen and unavoidable complications in relations 
with Russia have involved Germany in a war with 
France and England. 

"The false impression of the German character, Ger- 
man aim and German method which is being so persist- 
ently circulated in this country is most distressing to us 
all," he said. 

"We do not deserve to and we do not wish to go 
down into history as heartless, brutal combatants. Our 
invasion of Belgium was an act necessary to the pres- 
ervation of our national existence, and, while we have 
regrets to voice, we have no apologies to make for it. 

"If you should see a mob, bent on destruction, ap- 
proaching your home, you would not hesitate to hurry 
across a neighbor's lawn in your effort to prevent the 
spoliation of your property. 

"If that neighbor opposed your necessary passage 
with his fists, you would use your own, much as you 
might regret the necessity, and doubtless your regret 
would be doubly keen, as our was, in regard to Bel- 
gium, if that neighbor chanced to be a small man, weak. 



GERMANY AND THE WAR 



and certain to be overwhelmed by your superior phys- 
ical force. 

"But this would not prevent you from the protection 
of your own. It did not prevent us. The process which 
we followed was inevitable in the circumstances. 

"The Belgian resistance, which we were forced to 
crush, surprised us beyond measure. It was futile and 
suicidal. It has placed us in a false position with those 
who do not take the trouble to read between the lines 
of the dispatches for the purpose of securing accurate 
and just information. For Germany has no means of 
putting the true story of events before the world at 
present. 

"The most depressing exterior detail of the Belgian 
episode certainly has been the general American mis- 
understanding of the facts. I am under a great debt to 
America. I first came here twenty-seven years ago, 
and I have never lost the deep admiration for America 
and Americans which was my original impression. 

"My American training has been of infinite value to 
me and. I think I may say, has been of value to Ger- 
many. 

"When I first found myself confronted by Germany's 
colonial problems I was immensely aided by the exam- 
ple America had offered of developing new country by 
means of railroad construction undertaken without re- 
gard to the financial risk entailed. 

"You have been wonderful in these matters. Where 
to-day is wilderness you lay a double line of steel, and 
to-morrow railway stations have been built at intervals 
which seem quite reckless in their brevity. But next 
year each station is surrounded by its prosperous town ! 

"Any anti-German sentiment in the United States be- 
comes doubly distressing because so many of the Ger- 
man race have profited by this and other of your orig- 
inal, progressive, and even daring methods. I cannot 
believe that America, as a whole, will not very soon 
give us more favorable judgment. 

"I have come here to make arrangements for co- 
operation between the Red Cross Society of Germany 
and that of the United States. I have been welcomed 
and assisted in a manner which must warm my heart 
with a whole-hearted sympathy for the unimaginable 
suffering which the war is giving rise to. The officials 
of your American Red Cross Society are very ener- 
getic, and Miss Boardman, its president, is wonderful. 

"Of course, the Germans will do what they can to 
facilitate the work of all whose humanitarian impulses 
lead them toward lending us assistance in these hours 
of great distress. 

"The work will be effective in an unprecedented 
measure, because of your whole-souled cooperation, and 
because the German preparations have been for years 
upon a large scale, for the Red Cross in Germany is 
not an exclusively war-time organization. It is kept 
in practical and immensely valuable operation in times 
of peace. 

"Vast stores especially designed to facilitate its war 
work have thus been accumulated, and I never have 
seen anything more inspiring than the spirit which the 
German women are displaying as they bend to the great 
task before them. 



Empress's Unflagging Work, 

"The Empress, who is at the head of this, has been 
an indefatigable worker in its behalf. A special order, 
with three classes, known as the Order of the Red 
Cross, shows the imperial appreciation of the work's 
importance. 

"In order that the organization may not become in- 
eiScient in time of peace and may ever be useful, it 
maintains a great number of hospitals, convalescent 
homes, sanitaria for the care of consumptives, etc. 
It fights tuberculosis on a great scale, especially along 
preventive lines. 

"It appoints and maintains visiting nurses to go to 
the homes of the indigent, and in many vk^ays does 
good work in time of peace, which may be taken as 
an indication of what now may be expected of it in 
war time. 

"Almost every German wife and mother and prac- 
tically every German woman of means considers it her 
bounden duty to belong to it. It constantly keeps sev- 
eral hundred nurses in Africa and the Eastern Ger- 
man possessions. 

"At the head of the Colonial Division is Frau von 
Stephan, the wife of our distinguished Postmaster 
General, who founded the International Postal Union. 
Its headquarters are in Berne. 

"Enormous stores of everything which may be re- 
quired in the care of the wounded and sick are con- 
tinually kept on hand, and these are distributed through- 
out the empire. The fact that the organization works 
for the relief of suffering humanity in time of peace 
as well as in time of war keeps these supplies con- 
tinually fresh and usable. 

"The organization, although made up principally of 
women, is supported, that is, supplemented, by the 
Order of St. John of the Hospital of Jerusalem, the 
membership of which is exclusively male, and is made 
up, mostly, of the nobility. 

"The actual ambulance service — the first care of the 
wounded — is a part of the army establishment. Its 
doctors are very well mounted and must take the field. 
Among the second reserve — men with slight physical 
defects — are a sufficient number of physicians to be 
capable of looking after the ambulance service and the 
first care of the wounded. 

"But we need all the help we can get in subscrip- 
tions, large and small. 

"All Germany is offering the world a wonderful illus- 
tration of what undivided national spirit can do in time 
of crisis. From the moment when our Emperor, in his 
speech from the throne, announced that thenceforward 
no diversities of parties or creeds must hamper Ger- 
many, the unification of the national spirit has been com- 
plete. 

" 'I ask the leaders of all branches of political thought 
to come forward and put their hands in mine,' said he. 

"He has the use of one arm only, and that one must 
have wearied, though his heart must certainly have 
warmed, at the response which followed. 

"Then, for the first time in the history of that great 
structure, the national anthem was sung there. It was 



GERMANY AND THE WAR 



impressive. There was no pageantry or ceremony, but 
all were pledged for Germany. 

"Well, this marvelous unanimity of public thought is 
as much in evidence among the women of the nation, 
who are actively participating in the Red Cross work of 
mercy, as it is among the men, who principally think of 
other phases of the national crisis. 

"Before that memorable afternoon, and the Emperor's 
brief but historic speech had passed into history, offers 
of any number of private houses in the best parts of 
Berlin had been made to the Red Cross. 

"My own home is now a hospital. My family is liv- 
ing in its basement. The balance of the structure is 
devoted to the sick and wounded. 

"War is terrible, but the spirit which this war — this 
unjust and wicked, this utterly unsought war — has 
aroused in Germany is beautiful. 

"To me, who am familiar with the facts, the reports 
which have been published in this country, attributing 
heartlessness and cruelty to the German troops and 
populace, are so grotesque that they make me wonder if 
I read right. I cannot understand this talk of German 
cruelty. It never has been exhibited in the German 
character. It is not there. 

"America should fee! sure of that, and there are those 
among your most distinguished citizens who do feel sure 
of it. The most eminent of your medical doctors and 
surgeons have studied with us. They would not go to 
a nation of barbarians to be instructed in the art of 
healing ! We have done much for science. Why 
should we suddenly have turned into tigers? 

"And what of our adversaries? Is everything they 
do above the possibility of criticism? 

"They are bringing into Europe to help them in their 
fight against us the uncivilized from India, and rank as 
their allies the yellow Japanese ! 

Somewhat Inconsistent. 

"While they are denouncing us for cruelties which 
never have occurred, they are fighting side by side with 
Russia, whose treatment of the Jews they have but just 
left off proclaiming and condemning. With that race 
whose revengeful Siberian political convict system has 
been the scandal of the world for generations they have 
linked hands cheerfully, joining in their quarrel with 
us — a quarrel in which we stood for civilization and 
advance. I am as greatly puzzled as I am distressed by 
the whole unexampled tragedy. 

"May eighth, but a few months ago, I was in London. 
I was greeted there by many friends. The Berlin 
Chamber of Commerce had been invited to the visit by 
the London Board of Trade. The speeches were so en- 
thusiastic, so full of good feeling, that I told myself: 
'This is the beginning of an era of a better German- 
English feeling!' And now the nations are at war I 

"One day, later in the same month, I had 300 British 
workingmen in my garden in Berlin for tea. War had 
been declared when I received through the mail their 
engrossed testimonial of thanks. 

"I am amazed by their abrupt reversal of colonial 
policy. When I was Colonial Secretary for Germany 



I had many dealings with the British Colonial Office, 
and the officials of the two nations were agreed that in 
dealing with the yellow races of Asia and the black races 
of Africa all Europe should work with complete una- 
nimity of purpose, maintaining white prestige. 

Unworthy of White Men. 

"Now we find the English calling Japanese and In- 
dians, the French calling the Senegalese and others, and 
the Riissians calling the Cossack hordes to help them 
win from us thirty-five square miles, this being the whole 
of our Asiatic territory. 

"We Germans do not know how to handle such a 
situation. We feel that the conduct of our enemies has 
amounted to a reversal of the dignity of the white man. 

"It seems incredible to us that European nations 
should add to the horrors of a European war by calling 
to their aid the Mongolian and Ethiopian, whose ideals 
are low or non-existent, who are really worse barba- 
rians than we have been unjustly charged with having 
shown ourselves to be in Belgium. 

"It has been said that Germany is dazed. That she 
is not, for she is utterly alert and comprehends the situ- 
ation as it is, but she has been almost incredulous in 
her astonishment at the whole unbelievable affair. 

"For forty-three years, although we have maintained 
a large and very powerful standing army, we have 
taken no inch of ground save through peaceful arrange- 
ment with the other nations, who have taken their full 
share of that to be divided. 

"The German people do not covet any inch of foreign 
territory on the surface of the earth. Germany's Am- 
bassador said to Sir Edward Grey that if England would 
stand neutral, Germany, after her inevitable victory 
over France, would not claim a hectare of French ter- 
ritory. After the German victory which is no less as- 
sured now than it was then, we shall, of course, con- 
sider matters with no regard for that suggestion, for 
England did not stand neutral. But that was our prop- 
osition. 

"I am especially anxious to emphasize in my state- 
ment to the people of America, ahhoiigh, of course, 
they know it, the fact that we are not at war because 
of any greed for anything belonging to our neighbors. 
Germany was very busy and utterly contented with her 
own affairs when she was forced into this unjustifiable 
war." 

I asked for some prediction as to what might come 
in Belgium. 

"The spirit of Germany in her dealings with weaker 
peoples never has been other than kindly and helpful," 
was the answer. "I am sure that it never will be other- 
wise. My own experience with German sentiment in 
regard to colonial affairs entitles me to speak of this 
with real authority. 

Colonial Development. 

"When I took office, German colonial affairs were 
rather muddled. It was loudly proclaimed that Ger- 
many would never make her colonies profitable. I care- 
fully considered this very definite problem. 



GERMANY AND THE WAR 



"Presently I saw that this point was of no impor- 
tance. It became generally known and accepted in Ger- 
many that the colonies must be developed slowly, and 
that a long time would elapse before they showed any 
return for the vast sums which we must spend on them. 

"Almost from the start Germany realized that if we 
wished to receive from our colonies the raw stuffs and 
products which they could produce and we, at home, 
could not, we should have to give them, both in justice 
and in wisdom, our assistance along that road of racial 
and social progress which they could not start upon nor 
travel on alone. 

"That has been Germany's consistent method with 
her colonies. We have made free gift to them of all 
our knowledge, exterminating the scourges which had 
decimated them before we rescued them, bettering their 
conditions in every possible particular, and have been 
quite content to wait long and patiently for such return 
for these services as they may be able to render some 
time. 

"Brutal with our colonies? No! Was it brutality 
or elevated civilization which led us to send to Africa 
for the relief of suffering native populations the cele- 
brated Dr. Koch, who discovered the cholera bacillus 
and the dread secret of the sleeping sickness and aided 
England in her efforts toward extermination of the 
cattle fever? He spent about a year on Tse-Tse Island, 
in Victoria Nyanza, where the sleeping scourge had 
killed off every single native resident. 

"After Koch's discovery we called in Ehrlich, the 
discoverer of salvarsan, who helped to stop the progress 
of the plague, compounding a special and very effective 
remedy. We constructed great hospital camps, in which 
all those who were attacked were isolated, to the pres- 
ervation of their neighbors, if not to their own salvation. 

"Germany spends more than $1,000,000 a year in 
medical service in her colonies. Is this the evidence of 
ruthlessness and greed ? I cannot believe America will 
think so. 

"I, myself, made arrangements of an international 
character for the fight against the sleeping sickness, 
which was endangering the whole interior of Africa. I 
was the first Colonial Secretary of any European coun- 
try to go to Africa. It was not an easy journey; it 
had none of the peculiarities of a pleasure jaunt. 

"I penetrated 800 miles from the coast, spending 
thirt)'-one days, practically on foot, covering 400 miles. 
With the assistance of the missions vast good was ac- 
complished with the native women, who were being 
decimated by a venereal scourge, were giving birth to 
unhealthy children, and up to that time had refused to 
let a doctor touch them. 

Social System in Colonies. 

"That was not the work of the 'mailed fist,' was it? 
Can the world believe that it was done by the same 
men capable of such atrocities as those with which my 
countrymen have been credited in Belgium? 

"The next German task was the introduction of a 
more enlightened social system in its colonies. Slavery 
already had been abolished in all German territory, 
although in another part of Africa King Leopold of 



Belgium — the nation which we are accused of having 
treated with such wanton cruelty — for his personal 
profit was conducting operations which became the 
scandal of the world, largely through the enterprising 
humanity of American investigative publications. 

"I have no wish to say one word in disparagement of 
unhappy Belgium, but it is historical fact that they 
used their African possessions as a commercial proposi- 
tion, without regard to the accepted tenets of civiliza- 
tion, while Germany did not, never has, does not thus 
use hers. We actually made war upon white planters 
whom we found to have been practically enslaving the 
blacks. 

"Our next procedure was to make the blacks familiar 
with improved farming implements — at the expense of 
Germany — and to instruct them in improved methods 
of cultivation. 

"The English had had great experience in coloniza- 
tion and we went to them for aid and for instruction, 
which they freely gave to us. We joined hands with 
the British Cotton Growing Association, in Manchester, 
in efforts to educate the blacks up to productive labor. 

"We were very grateful for the help which England 
plainly very gladly gave us. That experience with 
England, with which I was so intimately associated, is 
one of the many things which makes the present situa- 
tion seem to me to be so utterly incredible. 

Improving Condition of Natives. 

"Presently, as a part of that same German policy 
with weaker peoples, which is said to be so brutal, a 
great committee was formed in Germany for the pur- 
pose of furthering the economic condition of our col- 
onies, black and white. 

"We distributed many hundreds of tons of cotton 
seed every year, we even more widely introduced im- 
proved agricultural implements, entirely superseding in 
all German territory the man-drawn plow, and we estab- 
lished many model farms. We passed stringent laws 
regarding sales of land to white men, considering first, 
in all this legislation, the native's needs. 

"And since I took office, eight years ago, not a shot 
has been fired in any German colony, save when an 
expedition was sent to the Island of Yap, where a 
German administrator had been nnirdered. It was on 
this island that the English allies, the Japanese, recently 
destroyed a German Marconi tower. 

"The result of all this work has been an enormous 
increase in the wealth of native peoples under German 
control. I myself have built in Africa 3,200 miles of 
railway, following the American method of financing, 
the improvements being paid for by taxes from both 
whites and blacks who reaped the benefit. Not one 
complaint ever has been heard in connection with this 
great enterprise. 

'■\Vith the exception of the cost of small military 
establishments, all these colonies now are absolutely 
self-supporting, and last year their export trade was 
five times what it was in 1906. Even the chiefs, who 
have lost somewhat of prestige, are enthusiastic over 
German management and are flocking to our support. 
This is literally true. 



GERMANY AND THE WAR 



No Colonies Taken By Force. 

"There was a certain comfort in being at the head of 
Germany's Colonial ottice, due to the fact that none of 
her colonies was taken by force. While England was 
forcibly appropriating Egypt, shelHng Alexandria, in- 
vading Persia with armed and fighting men and sub- 
jugating the two great Boer republics in a war which 
cost 250,000 lives and $11,000,000,000; while France was 
slaughtering the harmless and almost affectionate little 
Antananarivos in Madagascar and violently subjugat- 
ing Tunis, Morocco, and Indo-China; while Russia was 
capturing Turkestan by means of bayonet and bullet, 
and having two great wars, those of 1878 and 1904 — 
while the nations now at war with us and charging us 
with inhumanity to man were doing these things and 
many more which I have not enumerated, Germany 
was making not one armed efifort at expansion. 

"Since 1870 German acquisition has been of three 
kinds. The first is represented by our African colonies, 
which were allotted to us by the Congo Conference; the 
second is represented by our purchase of the Marian 
and Palan Islands, and the third is represented by Kiao- 
Chau and part of the French Congo, leased or ceded 
to us by agreement. 

"We have been accused of provoking war by our 
maintenance of a large standing army. 

"Germany had been the battle ground of Europe for 
centuries when Bismarck saw that such an army would 
be the only guarantee of peace. 

"As such we maintained it, and only as such ; and as 
such it was effective until the existent European 
cataclysm swept right and reason to one side and filled 
fair lands and wonderful cities with disorder and 
destruction. 

Mission to America. 

"My mission to America is that of a confident sup- 
pliant, pleading the cause of humanity. We felt that 
since nearly all the people of Europe, which in time 
of former wars had been able to care for its own war 
terrors of disease and wounds, are now engaged in 
conflict, we were now justified, in this time of our 
incredible emergency, in an appeal for assistance to the 
only great nation in the world not actually involved 
in the vast conflict. 

"It is true that Europe to-day finds most of its 
nations deep in warfare — Germany, England, France, 
Russia, Austria, Servia, and Montenegro, Japan and 
Turkey are involved, and it is said that Italy may be. 

"It is a cataclysm. Only the United States, Switzer- 
land, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and the Latin Amer- 
icas are free from strife, and of the Latin Americas, 
Mexico, at least, is not at peace exactly. 

"We felt that a great emergency had arisen, that 
outside help to war victims was more necessary than at 
any other time in the world's history. Besides, the 
United States has become known as the most generous 
nation of the world; her citizens are famous for their 
philanthropic activities. 



"We know that in the last analysis we shall not be 
denied your friendship now, and that nothing is more 
impossible than that you should fail to rise, with effi- 
ciency and generosity, to help us meet this great 
emergency. 

"Germany has freely shown her friendship for this 
country in the past. The nations have been drawn to- 
gether by their advanced scientific interests, by what 
amounts to an interlocking higher educational system 
of which the main and highly progressive feature is 
the exchange professorship plan. 

"Nothing could be more natural than that when, 
beset on every side, we find ourselves likely to be un- 
able to care in the most efficient possible manner for 
our own sick and wounded, and likely to find upon our 
hands the many of those of our enemies who surely 
soon will be added to our great responsibilities, we 
should turn to you. Our experience in 1870 taught 
us your splendid spirit. 

"Prussia was the first European nation to conclude a 
treaty of commerce and friendship with you. It was 
signed in 1786. An enormous number of Germans, 
since then, have emigrated to this country and from 
among them you have drawn true American patriots of 
great achievements. 

As to German Cruelties. 

"Incidentally, why cannot America find a good basis 
for judging whether or not the German nature is 
capable of such cruelties and outrages as those with 
which it has been charged, by passing in review her 
German-American citizens? 

"Could such tales as have been told of us be safely 
believed of them without incontestable proofs? In one 
sense the United States is the largest German colony 
in existence. In all our colonial possessions are but 
23,000 Germans. In the United States are more than 
3,000,000 Germans, aside from Americans of German 
descent. 

"By the way, these statements answer the absurd 
contention that Germany, finding herself too thickly 
populated, is reaching out for new domain. It is far ' 
less densely peopled than is Belgium, and England's -4 
population is denser than Germany's. 

"Perhaps less than any other the German Red Cross 
organization would find itself under the necessity for 
an appeal to outside sympathy and help were it not 
suddenly confronted by such conditions as the world 
has never duplicated. Our Red Cross is so well organ- 
ized that every gift sent to it will immediately and 
without waste be applied to the necessary work of 
mercy. 

"It is an independent society under the Geneva Con- 
vention, but it has an Imperial Commissioner, who is 
always delegated in time of peace, at present Prince 
Salms-Baruth, Grand Marshal of the Court of the 
Emperor. He works in cooperation with the German 
Women's Patriotic League, a large organization that 
has its committees in every city iu the empire." 



GERMANY AND THE WAR 



WHAT ENGLAND AIMS AT 



Plans to Engage United States in War in German Trade, Thereby Incapac- 
itating This Country From Becoming Mediator 



English statesmen proclaim that the war must be 
fought to the last man ; that it must be long and ex- 
haustive ; that it should be fought by applying the bit- 
ter pangs of starvation to 120,000,000 of Germans and 
Austrians, by cutting oft' all credit, by the destruction 
of German and Austrian oversea commerce, by taking 
Germany's share of the world's trade and shipping. 

All these are, maybe, very effective weapons, and 
English experience has certainly been that the longer 
a Continental war lasts the deeper Continental Powers 
get entangled, the more they get tired and weary, the 
better the chance has always been for Great Britain to 
strengthen her own position. She is practically im- 
mune from the consequences of war as far as the per- 
sonal comfort of her peoples goes. She can go on and 
hold her theatres open, run her races and her sports. 
The sea is open to her; she is not afraid or in danger 
for her provisions. 

Her army is not a national army. They are very 
good trained soldiers, who, excepting a small propor- 
tion of volunteers, make war a profession, and if Eng- 
land succeeds in keeping the unemployed quiet they suf- 
fer no great hardship. 

On the other hand, every long European war has 
given Great Britain the opportunity of adding very 
largely to her possessions oversea. The history of 
British coaling stations and fortresses abroad is the 
history of long Continental wars, where every possible 
antagonist was kept busy. So she got, as it is well 
known here, Canada after France had become ex- 
hausted in the seven years' war in 1763. She got as a 
result of the Napoleonic wars, when neither France 
nor the Netherlands, nor any other European nation 
could defend their possessions, the isles of Malta, Cey- 
lon, Trinidad. She got, as a consequence of the Russo- 
Turkish war, for her neutral attitude, the Isle of Cy- 
prus. In 1705 she took Gibraltar during the war of 
Spanish Succession. She made good use of the Turks' 
exhaustion in getting Alexandria in 1882. She got 
Madras as a result of the French being entangled in 
European difficulties in 1765 and 1799. And Jamaica 
became British because the Spaniards could not hold 
it in 1656. The same happened with New York, then 
New Amsterdam, in the struggle with Holland that 
lasted over twenty years. This list could be amplified to 
any desired length. England always kept her sea power 
free, and when the Continental Powers were engaged 
made good use of it. So it is that British statesmen 



have come to the conclusion that the longer a war 
lasts the better for her. 

She may now try to capture the German possessions 
oversea, make such arrangements with Portugal as she 
thinks to her interests, get an option on the Congo 
from Belgium as a reward for her services, provided 
the war lasts long enough. 

Britain's Selfish Policy. 

It is a very admirable policy from the point of self- 
interest. Thus do British statesmen reckon that the 
longer the war lasts the more the German trade can 
be deviated from its present channels, the more the 
German fleet will come into decay, the surer German 
business can be captured. But it would not seem wise 
to pronounce such a programme as loudly as it is 
being done, since such a policy is always carried on 
better without much noise, but that policy evidently 
has got to serve various ends. 

In the first place it is intended to tide the English 
public opinion over a number of difficulties which are 
arising now and which will more certainly arise in the 
future also in England as a consequence of the war. 

English trade with its best customer, Germany, is 
cut ofif. So is its Belgian trade, on which it depends 
for its vegetables and fruit. So is a large part of 
France, which seems to be more or less commercially 
paralyzed. She cannot keep up her trade with Russia 
through the Baltic, and the harbors in the White Sea 
and the far East commence now to freeze up. Her 
stock exchange is closed. And the consequence of all 
this will be a great deal of dissatisfaction in the mer- 
chant community, and more so in the laboring com- 
munity, because a great many industries must needs 
stop. Cotton has gone down to a price unthought of. 
It is a sure indication that the cotton industry in con- 
tinental Europe and also in Lancashire is working on 
a very reduced scale. Wood pulp and paper are miss- 
ing and the issue of newspapers is thereby in danger. 
Aniline dyes it does not get any more from Germany, 
which is a serious matter to the Bradford trade, .^nd 
all of the many necessities which Englishmen have 
been accustomed to which come from the Continent 
or from France will after a while commence to fade. 
So it must be held out to the English people that if 
they only hold out in a war much longer than any- 
body else they will greatly profit by it. 



GERMANY AND THE WAR 



Trying to Drag U. S. In. 

But all this is more or less British concern, and I 
would not trouble about it at all if this proclamation 
of policy was not also intended to have certain effects 
on the United States. Please understand that I am not 
discussing the ethical side. But I must talk of the 
effects.. The American people are invited by the Eng- 
lish — and all her, emissaries are trying to move the 
United States people to participate in the English cru- 
sade against German trade and German shipping — and 
they hold out to them that this is the time when the 
German trade, either with England or with South 
America or with China, could be had for the asking; 
that the British were great benefactors to the Amer- 
ican people in inviting them to share; and that America 
was acting much against her interests if she did not 
follow this kind invitation. 

I wish now to examine the situation of America in 
this matter, but I would say* right at the start that I 
am not so pretentious as to try to give any advice on 
this matter and that I am examining the situation solely 
to make clear the conclusions to which I came. 

American business men know what they have got to 
do. They will not let themselves be influenced by an 
opinion, even if it comes from a man who has been in 
business for more than thirty years with all the peo- 
ples of the globe. But since it seems to be a popular 
feeling that the British indication o«ight to be followed', 
I may perhaps be permitted to speak in a popular way 
as to what I personally think to be the case. 

Americans believe that now is the time to get a big 
merchant marine ; that they ought to have one and they 
ought to have it now. I fully agree that America ought 
to have a good merchant marine, but whether this time 
is any better than any previous time, and whether if in 
the short time occasioned by the locking up of the Ger- 
man fleet an American merchant marine can be put on 
a permanent paying basis, I have my grave doubts. It 
has been contended that the navigation act, now re- 
pealed, has stood in the way. As far as I understand, 
this navigation act originally was meant to encourage 
American shipbuilders, as it does not permit foreign- 
built vessels under the American flag, and that Amer- 
ican-built ships should have American crews. As to 
this latter point I am not quite certain. The only ob- 
stacle to an American merchant marine has not been 
German competition, because by far the greatest ship- 
ping business in the world has been done in English bot- 
toms, and* there must be other causes which have pre- 
vented a merchant marine from existing. These causes 
are found in the fact that shipbuilding in the United 
States, as manufacturing is in general, is much more 
expensive ; that wages in the United States, especially 
those of skilled workmen, are very high, a situation 
that Americans are proud of because it shows a better 
distribution of wealth and more comfortable living of 
the people in the lower walks of life. 

Americans Are Handicapped. 

Now, by buying German ships locked up. even if the 
belligerents would permit it, cheap vessels might per- 
haps be got. But then comes the cost of maintaining 
and manning these ships, which must be done by Amer- 



icans. As these men must be paid on the American 
standard, the ships run with American provisions, it 
stands to reason that the running cost will greatly ex- 
ceed that of the competing Britishers. Besides, there 
are no docks or wharves ; there is no agency system, 
no intimate knowledge of trade conditions and so on. 
All this will probably cost much more than the ships 
themselves. 

I feel, therefore, safe in predicting that any mer- 
cantile marine trade that can be taken away from Ger- 
many will not go to the United States, but to such 
countries as can compete in industrial and manual wages 
with England, perhaps Sweden, Norway and Holland. 
But most of it will be taken by England itself. The 
moment for this mercantile marine seems to be, there- 
fore, not much better than any previous time. 

But there is another side to the case, which I must 
allude to. I have spoken of the British possessions 
oversea. They form a chain around the coast of all 
nations that makes any commercial shipping dependent 
upon the permission of Great Britain. That was the 
reason why Germany tried to build up a very strong 
navy. The statement seems to be very wide, and must 
therefore be proved. I invite your readers to take a 
map of the world and follow my explanation. To-day, 
to commence at the north, the Baltic is bottled up by 
the English command of the sounds. No Swedish, no 
Finnish, no Russian, no Danish, and no German ship 
can to-day go out without being stopped and searched. 
The same is the case with the North Sea. It is locked 
in the north by the British command of the Orkneys 
and Shetlands ; locked in the west by the British com- 
mand of the Channel. No ship, either German, or Bel- 
gian, or Dutch, or French, can to-day come out of the 
North Sea without British permission. The Mediter- 
ranean is controlled by the possession of Gibraltar, and 
of Malta, and of Suez, and of Cyprus. No ship, neither 
Turkish, nor Greek, nor Austrian, nor Italian, nor 
French, can get to the high seas without British in- 
spection and permission. 

England's Control of the Seas. 

British stations on the coast of Africa are equally 
numerous ; the Gold Coast and Largoa and the Island 
of St. Helena and the Cape on the west side; Durban 
and Zanzibar and Port Sudan on the east side. The 
Red Sea is absolutely closed by the British possession 
of the Island of Perim and the rock fortress of Aden. 
In the Persian Gulf there is Bushir and Koweit, two 
English strongholds. On the way to China there is 
Ceylon and Singapore. On the coast of China you 
have Hongkong and Shanghai, which is practically 
British, and Wei-Hei-Wei. In the South Sea there is 
British New Guinea and New Zealand and Fiji and the 
Tonga Islands. So that practically in all these seas 
Great Britain can permit or forbid oversea trade. 

Any nation engaged in mercantile shipping must take 
these things into account, but for the United States 
there is a very special reason. The Panama Canal is a 
main asset of American oversea trade, and the activ- 
ities of the pro-mercantile navy people have mostly 
South America in view. Now. while it is quite true 
that on the north there is the long land Canadian fron- 
tier, that is in no way a danger to the United States, 



lO 



GERMANY AND THE WAR 



there are also in the north a number of British coal- 
ing stations. They can and do control the entrance 
to American harbors. There you have St. John and 
Halifax within easy reach of New England. British 
cruisers are now constantly patrolling the mouths of 
your harbors of New York or of Delaware. And then 
commences that marvellous chain of British fortified 
coaling stations that block up absolutely the Gulf of 
Mexico and the Panama Canal. It commences with 
the Bermudas, just about opposite Charleston; the Ba- 
hamas, commanding the straits between Key West and 
Havana; Jamaica, the entrance of the Caribbean Sea. 
And then you have Barbados, Trinidad, &c., that ships 
from the United States must pass on their way to South 
America. And it is not much better on the west side, 
where from the port of \'ancouver the whole American 
west coast is skirted. 

Now Germany would not build up a big mercantile 
business in the foreign trade without being able to 
protect it. At present there is a strong German fleet. 
So strong that together with the American fleet it 
could give weight to any representations against an 
overbearing or arrogant policy on the part of Great 
Britain, such as the United States have repeatedly no- 
ticed. But when the German mercantile trade is out 
of business and if at British demand the German navy 
is dismantled, then the United States cannot have .a 
mercantile marine without a navy that can single- 
handed cope with the British, and that is the more dif- 
ficult as the British navalism, which is much more dan- 
gerous to the world at large than the so-called German 
rnjTitarrsm, demands that two British ships shall always 
exist for one of any nation whatsoever. And while it 
may be said that the world is doing now its oversea 
trade on British tolerance, there is the certainty that it 
can in future only do it by British permission if the 
British programme of destroying Germany and its fleet 
in a long struggle is realized. 

English Invitation "A Bribe." 

To my mind a strong central Power in Europe is in- 
dispensable for the American trade, be it on American 
or foreign ships. In other words, the invitation by 
Great Britain to share in the destruction of German 
trade, to assist them in prolong'mg the war, which of 
all the countries that are now struggling they think 
they can stand the longest, is just an allurement and 
a bribe, which, if taken, will in the end result in an 
.\merican mercantile marine unable to compete on busi- 
ness lines and which will necessitate, in case the Ger- 
man navy be destroyed, the United States to build at 
least as many ships, man, equip and maintain them as 
German ships are being destroyed. 

I repeat, therefore, the existence of the strong Ger- 
man fleet and of Germany as a strong central Power 
has already now been necessary to put a check to British 
ambition, and it will be more so in the future, whether 
a mercantile marine is built or not. 

Now about getting the trade. This is not an easy 
thing. Of course, there is some considerable busi- 
ness between the United States and South America, 
which is being cleared through English and continental 
banks. It is absolutely correct that, especially when 



these continental banks cannot do the service, Amer- 
ican banks should go to South America, and aided by 
the new Federal. Reserve Board* legislation, establish 
clearing houses of their own. But as to capturing any 
considerable trade I have my doubts. The trade is 
divided into import and export trade. As far as ex- 
ports from South America go they are mostly of raw 
products of which America buys as much as she hap- 
pens to want. The biggest export item from Brazil 
to the United States is coffee. In future the United 
States are not going to drink more coffee and there- 
fore buy more than they have done so far. They won't 
buy more wool, nor anything that is going beyond their 
wants, so there is nothing to be gained on this side. 
But there is $50,000,000 German trade in South Amer- 
ica in imports. Some of that might possibly be got. 
But as all is in specialties, in small things, dry goods, 
&c., it is costly to establish special business houses, with_ 
very large show rooms and great stocks of articles. It 
takes time to find out what the people want. It takes 
more time to find out, and it costs a lot of money to 
find out who deserves credit and who does not. And 
then comes the question of competition. Why didn't the 
United States have this trade before? Because of the 
higher cost of living and the higher cost of labor in 
these States, and because the mass of the people in 
South America must buy cheap things. They haven't 
enough money. So I expect that America will find that 
whatever trade can be got away from Germany will fall 
to Great Britain's share, and that a very considerable 
disappointment will follow a very silly move. 

-\fid the same holds good with China and the far East. 
The biggest competitor is Japan. And Germany, al- 
though very well equipped with textile industries, has 
not been able to get any trade from within Japan or 
Lancashire. The main importation from the far East 
is cotton goods. The people are too poor to buy high 
grade goods, and German exports are mostly of the 
same line as in South. America. Moreover, the whole 
amount of their exports is quite insignificant. 

Well, then, why do I tell you this? The reason is 
very obvious. While these inducements are held out ; 
while even the Prime Minister of Russia asks 
.'Vmerica to go ahead and grab German trade, the 
best customers that buy your high grade goods and 
vour raw products remain cut off from business. Five 
hundred million dollars of German trade, the same 
amount of French, Belgian and Austrian trade ; even 
the Russian trade is perfectly locked up, and there is 
no outlet for the exportation of such staple products 
as cotton, oil, copper and wheat, all of which the United 
States wishes to export. The American people lose 
very much more by the locking up of the European 
trade than they could possibly gain by getting a share 
in the German oversea trade. England wants that 
overseatrade itself, so its Ministers say, and it knows 
full well that America can get possibly only a very 
small share: 

But the consequences are much more far-reaching. 
There is an organized effort by any number of British 
writers to prejudice the United States against Ger- 
'many. All^ the news is more or less tainted in that 
direction. ^The fact that Germany is carrying on war 
in foreign lands gave rise to all sorts of tales of bru- 



GERMANY AiND THE WAR 



II 



talities, atrocities, etc. I wonder if the British or 

French would not attack German houses if they were 

defended by German soldiers, or would not retaliate if 

they would be fired upon from behind by German 

civilians. The idea is that the sympathy of the United 

I States should be taken away from Germany by playing 

I on the sentimental and human side of the American 

\j public, a side which I fully appreciate. 

But now comes the supplementary movement of try- 
ing to engage America in a war on German trade. 
And, while the unsympathetic feeling will certainly be 
resented ni Germany to some extent, the endeavors to 
get away with the German trade will widen very much 
the gulf between the two peoples and will get up a 
very bad feeling in Germany, which is not good be- 
tween two cultivated peoples who have been their very 
best customers for a hundred years. But that is just 
the game that is being played. I think it my duty in 
German as well as in American interests to explain this 
fully. There has been a commercial friendship and a 
political one between the two countries for 150 years, 
from the time when Lee, Benjamin Franklin, John 
Quincy Adams and others were in Europe to solicit 
recognition and trade arrangements for the American 
colonies struggling for their freedom, and they went 
to Frederick the Great in efforts to open the Prussian 
harbors to the American privateers. 

Germany Always Friend of U. S. 

Ever since the treaty of commerce and amity, drawn 
on very broad lines and full of the best humanitarian 
principles, of 1786, down to the present time, there have 
never been any difficulties, never been any serious busi- 
ness misunderstandings, never any war between the 
two countries. Hospitality on the part of the United 
States to our German immigrants, the liberality on the 
part of German science and culture to American wants 
have characterized the relations. We have never had 



a war, as England had with the United States; never 
had difficulties such as the Alabama case, the Panama 
case and the counteracting of American tendencies in 
Mexico, and the challenge of the Monroe Doctrine in 
the Venezuela business. 

But the ultimate tendency of the English programme 
is, however, yet another one. It is directed to inca- 
pacitate 'the United States to play a mediatory role in 
this war. The neutrality proclamation of the President 
has been the wisest document written in a long time, 
both in words and in spirit. But the President is only 
the exponent of the American people. If a gulf can 
be opened between Germany and America, if the Ger- 
mans won't trust the. American people and its Presi- 
dent, then there can be no effective mediation. It can- 
not be expected of our people to choose an umpire that 
has in words or in act shown himself biassed in the 
favor of our antagonist. It is just as impossible as 
to have a one-sided referee in a baseball game. So 
the movement intends to sidetrack the President's en- 
deavors and thereby further prolong the struggle, and 
I had to expose this whole matter because I think the 
tendencies of the President are very noble and there 
is a beautiful role, and one befitting the great American 
nation and its peaceful and progressive spirit in store 
for you, and I wish you to succeed in putting a stop 
when the time comes to one of the most grewsome 
aspects the world ever had. 

I know Americans are very angry with my people 
because of their belief that Germany might have pre- 
vented the war. But if I conceded for argument's 
sake, which I do not, that this might be true, the 
public should not allow itself to be kept busy with 
this topic, because for the moment it is of no prac- 
tical importance, but it should recognize that even for 
America, and just for America, there are very great 
issues at stake, matters of supreme national importance, 
and that they must be looked squarely in the face. 



12 



GERMANY AND THE WAR 




British Naval Stations form a Chain around the Coast of all Nations that makes Commercial SI 



GERMANY AND THE WAR 



»3 




Dependent on the Permission of Great Britain. (Note their Location around the United States.) 



14 



GERMANY AND THE WAR 



THE CAUSES OF THE WAR 



The End of Struggle Can Come Only When the Truly Progressive Nations 
Settle a Peace on an Honest and Equitable Basis 



When I arrived in New York, a fortnight ago, I 
was greatly surprised on reading in the papers big 
headings such as "The Kaiser's War," "The Kaiser's 
Army," "The Kaiser Beaten," etc. I thought at first 
that this was only a sort of abbreviation and that the 
"Kaiser's" name stood as a symbol for the whole of 
Germany in this war forced upon our nation. I soon 
had to see, however, that something quite different was 
meant and that a large portion of the American people 
were of the opinion that the Emperor was more or 
less responsible for the breaking out of the war, and 
that the German people, whom they all knew to be 
good and peaceable, had been dragged into it in conse- 
quence of autocratic institutions peculiar to Germany, 
and as a sequel to militarism rampant in Germany. 

I consider it therefore of interest to explain here the 
constitutional basis on which our institutions rest. The 
German Empire is a Union composed of all the States 
which formerly belonged to the German Federation, 
with the exception of Austria-Hungary. The Eleventh 
Article of the German Constitution says : "The Union 
shall be presided over by the King of Prussia, whose 
title is to be 'Deutscher Kaiser.' " There is a great 
similarity with the Constitution of the United States, 
which is also a Union of a number of Independent 
States, who have given part of their sovereignty in 
favor of the Union. While the Kaiser represents the 
Empire in its foreign relations, he may not declare war 
in the name of the Empire without the consent of the 
Bundesrat, representing these single States forming the 
Empire, except when German territory is attacked. In 
this Bundesrat of 54 equal votes, the Emperor, in his 
capacity of King of Prussia, has only 17 votes. It 
follows that the Emperor could not, and as a matter of 
fact has not, declared war on his own account, but that 
he had to have, and in fact had, the consent of his 
allies, represented by the Federal Council. This con- 
sent was unanimous. This is a much greater check 
than the control placed by the Constitution of the 
United States on the President, who of all great rulers 
i of the earth concentrates in himself the greatest power. 
The German Kaiser can no more than the President 
of the United States make war at pleasure. 

Emperor Not a "War^Lord." 

Neither is the Emperor what is called here, "The 
War-Lord." He has not the disposal, that is, the 
absolute command over the forces, of the entire Ger- 



man army. Article 66 of our Constitution says that 
the German Princes, more especially the Kings of 
Bavaria, Wiirtemberg and Saxony, are the Chiefs of 
the troops belonging to their territory (six army corps 
of twenty-four) ; they nominate the officers for these 
troops, they have the right to inspect these troops, etc. 
Consequently the absolute disposition of the German 
army passes on to the Kaiser only in the moment when 
the consent of his allies, viz.: the States who with 
Prussia form the Empire, has been obtained for the 
declaration of a war. But there is a further and much 
heavier check on the Emperor's doings. All measures 
providing ways and means for conducting war must be 
passed by the Reichstag. The Reichstag is a body 
elected on the most liberal ballot law that exists any- 
where, more liberal even than the ballot law of the 
United States for the election of a President. The 
German law, ever since 1867, has been a one man one 
vote, universal, secret and direct ballot law. The 
German people are represented as directly and demo- 
cratically in the Government as the American people 
are in theirs. The right to vote does not depend either 
on a census or on any educational test. Any German 
being 25 years and over may vote. The Reichstag con- 
sists of 397 members. The conservatives, the so-called 
"War Party," from which most of the officers are be- 
ing recruited, is in a hopeless minority, about 55. There 
are no Social Democrats and about 100 Liberals, so 
that in fact there is a Liberal majority in the German 
Reichstag. Notwithstanding this composition, this 
Reichstag has voted unanimously the necessary laws and 
credits for conducting the present war, and although the 
Social Democrats reject war on principle in their pro- 
gramme, they have endorsed unanimously the policy 
of the Empire, as set out to it by the Emperor's Chan- 
cellor. 

Not the "Kaiser's War." 

I say this to prove that this war is not a "Kaiser's 
war," because he cannot make a war, but it is the 
"German people's war." A modern war, according to 
Prince Bismarck's great speech in 1887, with its enor- 
mous armies comprising whole peoples, cannot be under- 
taken with safety nor carried through with success ex- 
cept by the full consent and enthusiastic assistance of 
the whole nation. Americans returning from Germany 
will tell you that this consent and enthusiasm are there 
in the highest degree and that there has never been 



GERMANY AND THE WAR 



15 



juch u uiiuy of the German people between princes and 
people, between parties and creeds as there is in these 
trying times, where no less than seven nations have ] 
joined hands to down our people. 

But I hear the reply that the consequences of mili- 
tarism all prevailing and all dominating in Germany 
have brought about militarism in the other European 
nations until matters reached such a tension that one 
clay the string had to snap and that it has snapped now. 
My reply to this is that Germany has not created nor 
luululy fostered militarism in Europe, that militarism in 
Germany forms but a very small part of our general 
activities, and that the maintenance of an army and navy 
was forced upon us by circumstances, by the history 
of our country and by our neighbors. We have not the 
strongest navy and never aspired to have it. Neither 
have we numerically the strongest army, as can be 
seen from American papers, which speak of eight to 
ten million Russian soldiers, while Germany is being 
credited with one-half that number. Nor did we start 
standing armies or navies at all. 

Ever since the Hapsburg Dynasty withdrew more or 
less from the old German Empire to develop its own 
dominions, Austria and Hungary, the "Holy Roman 
Empire," a term that has been the ridicule of the world 
for centuries, which is in fact but the territory of 
modern Germany, has been the cockpit and battle- 
ground for all the big wars that European nations, fight- 
ing for supremacy, have invariably chosen. Every 
student of history knows that in the Thirty Years' War 
(1618—48), for a full human life time, the French, the 
Danes, the Swedes, the Poles, the Austrians and 
Croats, even Spaniards, have fought their battles on 
German soil. A once flourishing and prosperous coun- 
try was so utterly devastated that at the end of that 
war it had only one-sixth of its former inhabitants. 
Everybody further knows that as a sequel to this de- 
plorable condition Louis XIV. was able to tear Alsace- 
Lorraine from Germany, to which it had belonged for 
more than eight hundred years, and that in connection 
with the Swedes and Poles he carried on war against 
little Prussia on German soil. 

Goethe, Vifho studied in 1770 in Strassburg, the capi- 
tal of Alsace, says in his "Wahrheit und Dichtung" 
that it must not be wondered at that the Alsatians had 
become so little French, in view of the short space 
they had belonged to France. 

During the next century we have the same picture. 
Everybody knows of the celebrated "Kaunitz combina- 
tion," when Russia and Austria in alliance with France 
and the Holy German Empire fought Frederick the 
Great for seven long years between 1756-63, all on 
German soil. And only forty years later Napoleon 
carried on his wars for the supremacy of France in 
Europe again on that same battlefield, where Germans 
and Austrians, Russians and Swedes gave each other 
a rendezvous in their fights against France for another 
seven long years, from the battles of Jena to those of 
Leipzig and Hanau. It was, and is, the situation of 
Germany in the middle of Europe, especially as long 
as she was so powerless and torn up into a number of 
small States, that makes it so convenient to settle all 
the troubles of the whole of Europe on its territory. 



England's Sway of the Seas. 

England has had a large standing navy ever since 
the times of Henry VIII., in the sixteenth century, 
and it has used that navy to maintain its absolute sway 
of the sea by always fighting the next best man, be /V 
it the Frenchman, the Spaniard, the Dutchman or the 
Russian. Russia and Austria have had their armies for 
centuries back, and so had Spain and especially France. 
There was no German army because there was no uni- 
fied Germany. We had a Prussian army only recon- 
structed in 1863 and the minor forces of 25 small States. 
After having destroyed Napoleon's power better days 
would have been expected for my country, but quite 
the reverse was the case. Three great diplomatists 
combined to keep Germany in her weakened condition, 
Prinz Metternich, the Austrian Prime Minister ; Prince 
Talleyrand, the versatile French envoy, and Lord 
Palmerston. The Napoleonic war ended with the 
A'ienna Congress in 1815. Germany was kept in her 
powerless and defenceless position under the name of 
the "German Federation." Holland, and later on Bel- i 
gium, which later had formed, up to 1830, the southern 
part of Holland, were constituted neutral buffer States, 
in order that England would have no reason to fear 
any Power on the other side of the Channel, and 
France managed to have herself surrounded on all 
parts with absolutely innocuous neighbors. Austria's 
jealousy of Prussia in connection with the English and 
French aspiration did not permit the German race to 
become a nation and a unity. 

When Belgium seceded from Holland the Powers 
selected a King who was both the son-in-law of the 
King of France and the uncle of the Queen of England, 
and therefore strongly affiliated with these two coun- 
tries. The German Federation, in which Prussia had 
just one vote out of seventeen, was purposely made an 
unworkable machine, requiring the unanimity of votes 
for all important measures. This was the situation that 
Bismarck found when in 1852 he was appointed Prus- 
sian Envoy to the Federation at Frankfort. He very 
soon perceived the absolute helplessness and the con- 
sequent misery of Germany, so he decided that if the 
German people were to become a nation and a power 
commensurate to its population and resources, Austria's ^ 
dominion had first to cease. This was brought about 
by the war of 1866. The Norddeutscher Bund followed 
and the common war with France welded Germany 
into an empire. History, however, had taught Bis- 
marck that this Empire could only live and prosper, 
wedged in as it was in the middle of Europe between 
' the great Powers, if it had an army strong enough 
to defend its frontiers against any attack and invasion; 
that it had to do as its neighbors had done before, viz., 
to create and maintain a large standing force for its 
preservation and its peace, and for the possibility of 
developing its international advantages and prosperity. 

Germany Military Purely Defensive. 

So the German military, as well as its naval force, 
have been created on purely defensive lines, its alli- 
ances have been concluded for defensive purposes only, 
and Germany holds the record for keeping peace within 
and outside of Europe for the last forty- four years.' 
It has never coveted its neighbors' territory nor its 



It 



GERMANY AND THE WAR 



colonies, it has never gone to war either in or out of 
Europe, and that is much more than can be said of. 
any of its neighbors and antagonists. 

Let us pass them in review. Since 1870: England 
has conquered Egypt, shelled Alexandria, taken by 
force two Boer republics; it has added to its sphere, 
by force, southern Persia, and by intimidation a part 
of Siam. France has conquered Tunis, she is fighting 
for Morocco, she has made war on Madagascar, has 
tried to take the Sudan and conquered Indo-China in 
bloody war. Russia has fought the Turks in 1878 and 
the Japanese in 1904, she has torn from China the 
northern part of Manchuria and all of Mongolia, she 
has made war on Turkestan, she has bagged northern 
Persia, she has formed and fomented the Balkan com- 
bination and has all along proved herself the most 
aggressive European Power. 

All that time Germany has added to its territory only 
certain colonial possessions, all ceded to her by peace- 
ful agreement and by common consent of the great 
powers. Willed Grass, a Lene Lenape chieftain, in his 
petition of 1852 to the Legislature of New Jersey for 
compensation to his tribe for the extinguishment of 
their fishing rights, declared : 

"Not a drop of our blood you have spilled in battle, 
not an acre of our land you have taken but by our 
consent." 

That is the case of my country in its territorial ac- 
quisitions since 1870 with respect to the European 
Powers. Germany has proven herself the most peace- 
ful European Power, even Spain and Italy not excepted, 
and the militarism plays a very much smaller part in 
the German national life than with any other nation. 

Americans in their love for fair play have frankly 
acknowledged the great strides that my country has 
made in the arts of peace, in science and technics, in 
trade and industry. We had better things to do than 
to think of how to attack other countries. We have 
built up a large merchant marine, the second largest 
in the world ; we built up a foreign trade second only 
Y. to the trade of England, which continues to be the 
clearing house of the world. We have developed uni- 
versities, which are visited by students from all parts 
of the world. Our legislation is made in the interest 
of the laboring man. Germany has been the first to 
introduce compulsory national insurance to ward off 
the consequences of accident and sickness, of old age, 
widowhood, etc. Our technical advances are undis- 
puted. 

Germany's World Markets. 

The electrical, and more so our chemical industries, 
have conquered the world's markets. German dyes and 
German medicines, Salvarsan, the Behring Serum and 
others are wanted everywhere. Germany was the first 
country to accomplish compulsory primary education, 
and the works of its painters and artists are known the 
world over. One of the greatest accomplishments fi- 
nally has been that by developing agriculture as a fine 
art we have made our country self-sustaining and 
nearly independent from outside food supply. In all 
this work the Kaiser has been most active and inter- 
^ \ ested, he has always been recognized as a lover of 
' ' peaceful development. Has it not been significant that 



he should have been placed oti the list Of candidates 
for the Nobel prize of peace? 

All this activity, however, presupposes a state of 
peace in the world; it would be insane to start so many 
enterprises if the idea of an aggressive or provoked 
war had been in the mind of the Emperor or of the 
people. It cannot be denied that all this has been the 
work of the last forty years. Before that time Ger- 
many was known and ridiculed in a way as a country 
of "poets and thinkers." Are they not the same people 
who have been doing so much since for civilization? 
Why didn't they develop these characteristics before? 
For the reasons I have just set forth. Without unity, 
liberty and security from outside interference these 
characteristics would not have been developed. 

A people that must always be afraid of being over- 
run from all parts, of being made a hostage of the 
Powers contesting for European supremacy, can do 
nothing in the works of peace, nothing in the acquisi- 
tion of property and means, which are the basis of all 
great commercial and industrial advance. The same 
claim can be made with regard to the German Colonies, 
which have been developed on humanitarian lines and 
become a valuable addition to our home production. 
That such a marvellous development, such a continu- 
ous increase in wealth, such an unrelenting competition 
with the older people for the markets of the world, 
should create the envy of our neighbors cannot be 
wondered at, and that they, therefore, should seize an 
opportunity to give what they call "a lesson to Ger- 
many" is not very remarkable. 

Now for the reasons of the present war. 

The world has become more democratic within the 
last half century, the power and influence of the dy- 
nasties have been replaced to a great extent by the all- 
prevailing spirit of nationalism and of racial assertion 
the world over. It is the people who now control the 
trend of European and of American politics also. The 
stronger the nationalism or racial feeling becomes^ the 
less are the rulers in control. This has happened espe- 
cially in Russia, w-hich, though autocratic as she is to 
her constitution, has forced the Czar to unroll the 
banner of Pan-Slavism. Pan-Slavism means the rally- 
ing of all people of Slav race under the dominion or 
protectorate of the White Czar. How far the Pan- 
Slavism has forced upon Russia the protectorate of the 
Balkans may be seen from the following quotation 
from the English white paper document No. 139: 

Evidence of Pan-Slavism. 

Sir G. Buchanan to Sir Edward Grey: 

"M. Sazonoff informed the French Ambassador and 
myself this morning of his conversation with the Aus- 
trian Ambassador. He went on to say that during the 
Balkan crisis he had made it clear to the Austrian 
Government that war with Russia must inevitably fol- 
low an Austrian attack on Servia. It was clear that 
Austrian domination of Servia was as intolerable for 
Russia" as the dependence of the Netherlands on Ger- 
many would be to Great Britain. It was, in fact, for 
Russia a question of life and death." 

You see: It was a matter of life and death to Rus- 
sia that Servia should not be attacked. Everybody 
knows that a great many Slav peoples are components 
of the Austrian Empire. Out of a total population (in 



GERMANY AND THE WAR 



17 



1910) of 51,000,000 in Austria-Hungary no less than 
20,500,000 are Slavs. The contention of Pan-Slavism, 
that the Servians and all Slavs must be dependent on 
Russia and that all Slavs would be protected by Rus- 
sia, did mean nothing less than the breaking up of 
Austria. That is what Austria most bitterly resents in 
her ultimatum. 

Whether this war came now, as a consequence of the 
murder of the Austrian Crown Prince, or at some later 
time, is without importance. Come it must, in any 
event, if not to-day then to-morrow, as long as Mr. 
Sazonoff's theory was upheld, and no international me- 
diation, no court of arbitration of whatever nature 
would have prevented the clash as long as the Russian 
theory was maintained and the Russian prestige de- 
manded such theory. 

But that such is the Pan-Slavism theory and has been 
since at least 1878 every reader of the Russian press 
can testify to. I quote from the New York TiDics of 
September 10, 1914: 

/" RECASTING EUROPE'S MAP. 
Russian View as to the Final Division of Territories. 

"PETROGRAD, Sept. 8th.— The 'Pretch' argues that 
the war must be terminated in such a way thatit^ shall 
leave no vengeful association on either side. The 
change in the map of Europe must be final and no 
nationality must be opposed in the satisfaction of its 
legitimate ambitions. This ideal is, however, irrecon- 
cilable with the evidence of an empire like Austria- 
Hungary. It is also irreconcilable with the hegemony 
of Prussia in Germany. Further, it is irreconcilable 
with the division of Poland and the Treaty of Bucha- 
rest. 

"The unification of Russia, Italy, Germany, Rumania 
and Servia must be completed. France must recover 
what has been taken from her and Bulgaria also. 

"A hundred years' fight for the principle of nation- 
ality must finish with a decision free from all compro- 
mise and therefore final. 

"These ideas seem to have many advocates in this 
country." 

Austria Is Germany's Only Ally. 

The national existence of Austria can never be arbi- 
trated upon. It is not too much to say that even the 
Czar, had he wanted to, could not have prevented this 
development. The breaking up, however, of Austria- 
Hungary cannot be tolerated by Germany. Austria is 
the only aid that Germany has for the purpose of de- 
fence which can be relied upon. The breaking up of 
the Dual Monarchy and the absolute isolation of Ger- 
many would have made her an easy prey to her neigh- 
bors whenever they chose to attack her. 

Sir Edward Grey has said of France that she had 
to take a hand in the struggle as a consequence of a 
fixed alliance and as a matter of national honor. That 
is quite so. Whether this French policy is wise or not, 
need not be discussed, but France has certainly fared 
very badly for binding herself for good and all to a 
Power which is ruled by racial instinct and whose aims 
and aspirations she cannot in the least control. 
-i By loaning to Russia 10,000.000,000 of francs she has 



enabled her to go to war, and she is not only the cre- 
ator of Russia's war machine but also the battlefield 
for Russian aspiration and the hostage of Germany for 
Russia's good behavior in the future. The English 
theory has always been for centuries back to keep all 
Europe in an equilibrium of forces, to have her divided 
in two camps with opponents matched as evenly as pos- 
sible, so that she should always have a free hand and 
on whichever scale this hand was pressed that the scale 
would go down. That England was very much averse 
to going to war and that the endeavors of Sir Edward 
Grey were very serious and very active to avoid the 
clash, just as incessant as those of the German Em- 
peror and his Chancellor, must be readily believed and 
understood. But when it had once been decided that 
Russia could not be held back in spite of these en- 
deavors, and as France had been dragged in, England j 
had to take a hand because of this theory of equilibrium. J 

38,000,000 Germans Against 40,000,000 French. | 

In 1870 there were 38,000,000 Germans fighting 
against 40,000,000 of French. At the return of Alsace- 
Lorraine to Germany the ratio was reversed. Ger- 
many had 40,000,000, France had 38,000,000. But while 
Germany, making great progress in its population and 
without addition of territory, has now more than 
66,000,000 of inhabitants, France has remained abso- 
lutely stationary, with 40,000,000 inhabitants; it was 
clear from the start that in a European struggle France 
must be crushed by the sheer weight in numbers and 
that the European equilibrium which was the stock 
theory of England would thereby go forever if Eng- 
land did not take a hand in the matter. It is very 
often said that England entered into war in consequence 
of the violation of Belgium's neutrality. Sir Edward 
Grey, whom I have known for a long while and always 
considered a superior diplomatist, and a gentleman, has 
never stated that the breach of the Belgium neutrality 
was the reason, and even less the on^ly reason, for 
England's going to war. His theory as expressed in 
his great speech in the House of Commons on August 3 
is contained in his quotation from Mr. Gladstone's 
address to the House of Commons on August 8, 1870. 
This quotation runs: 

"There is, I admit, the obligation of the treaty . . . 
but I am not able to subscribe to the doctrine . . . that 
the simple fact of the existence of a guarantee is bind- 
ing on every party to it, irrespectively altogether of the 
particular position in which it may find itself at the 
time when the occasion for acting on the guarantee 
arises. The great authorities upon foreign policy . . . 
as Lord Aberdeen and Lord Palmerston, never to my 
knowledge took that rigid, and if I may venture to say 
so, that impracticable view of the guarantee. The cir- 
cumstance that there is already an existing guarantee 
in force is, of necessity, an important fact, and a weighty 
element in the case. . . . There is also this further con- 
sideration, the force of which we must all feel most 
deeply, and that is, the common interests against the 
unmeasured aggrandizement of any Power whatever." 

This means in so many words that the neutrality 
treaty did not obligate England to uphold it and that 
it was Mr. Gladstone's as well as Sir Edward Grey's 
opinion, that it should be upheld only if and because 



i8 



GERMANY AND THE WAR 



' the particular interest of England cotnnianded it. That 
it means also this, that the guarantee was not binding 
upon Germany either, if its particular position did not 
permit of her holding it. Germany has offered Bel- 
gium integrity and indemnity, which she refused. Her 
particular position necessitated marching through Bel- 
gium, and this, according to Mr. Gladstone, she had 
a right to do. Mr. Ramsay Macdonald, the great Eng- 
lish labor leader, attacking Sir Edward Grey in the 
Labor Leader of Manchester, comments very bitterly 
on this theory. He says (see N. Y. Evening Post of 
Sept. 8) : 

"Germany's guarantee to Belgium would have been 
accepted by Mr. Gladstone. If France had decided to 
attack Germany through Belgium Sir Edward Grey 
would not have objected but would have justified him- 
self by Mr. Gladstone's opinions." 

Why England Defended Belgian Neutrality. 

Every unbiassed reader of the above quotation will 
agree to this. The salient point is that, to use Mr. 
Gladstone's words, England was afraid of "an unmeas- 
ured aggrandizement of Germany" and that is why she 
resolved to defend the Belgian neutrality. This was 
her interest, and such is Mr. Gladstone's theory, which 
Sir Edward Grey declares rules the British attitude. 
England has been the foremost power in the world 
for many hundred years, and Sir Edward Grey did not 
mean to bargain away lightly this inheritance. 

This is also the reason why they demanded of Ger- 
many that she should not attack any of the French 
coasts after France, with English consent, had previ- 
ously withdrawn her fleet from the Mediterranean. Sir 
Edward Grey says in the same speech : 

"The French coasts are absolutely undefended. The 
French fleet is in the Mediterranean, and has been for 
some years concentrated there because of the feeling 
of confidence and friendship which has existed between 
the two countries." 

He goes on to say : 

"My own feeling is this, that if the foreign fleet, en- 
gaged in a war which France had not sought (which 
is not very true. — Dr. D.) and in which she had not 
been the aggressor, came down the English Channel 
and bombarded and battered the unprotected coasts of 
France, we could not stand aside," &c. 

So England thought it necessary to prescribe to Ger- 
many from which side to attack France, neither from 
the sea, because the coasts were undefended, nor from 
Belgium, because Belgian neutrality was an essential 
element in England's policy of the equilibrium. 

If two locomotives are crashing into each other the 
buffers are the first parts to go, and if a clash came 
between England and Germany, necessitated because 
England had to take up the defense of France, it 
must not be wondered at that the first thing to go 
was the buffer-State intended purposely to keep the 
two Powers separate and England with a weak neigh- 
bor on the North Sea. This is to my mind the his- 
tory of the development of the present struggle. It is 
the Pan-Slavic agitation and the necessity of the Czar 
to uphold Russia's prestige which forced its hand to 
take issue with Austria. It was a necessity for Ger- 
many, and I may add here her bounden duty, under 



the written obligation of the Treaty of 1878, to come 
to the help of Austria and protect her from destruc- 
tion and dismemberment. 

Qermany True to Her Pledges. 

Whoever says that Germany should have forsaken 
Austria if she did not take Germany's counsel to crouch 
before Russia's pretenses asks her to commit an act 
of breach of the most solemn obligations and subscribe 
to the "Scrap of Paper" theory that is so much at- 
tacked. As a matter of fact the scrap of paper theory 
is not a German but an English invention, as proved 
above. But not only the treaty with the Dual Mon- 
archy, but the hostile attitude of her neighbors, forced 
Germany to stand by Austria. That France would 
come in was a foregone conclusion (they have the same 
treaty with Russia as we had with Austria) and how 
and why England's interests dictated her to assist France 
I have just tried to expose. This trouble has been 
pending over Europe for a number of years. It is 
ridiculous to proclaim Russia, the land of pogroms and 
Siberian horrors, as a progressive European Power, 
as a shield of Liberalism and as the land of growing 
liberty. It is rather unfortunate, and I do think it is 
being regretted very much by England, that their com- 
mon interest with France has forced it to become allies 
to Russia. 

I believe that the end of all this struggle can only 
be accomplished when the truly progressive nations of 
the West, led by Germany and England, join hands to 
render to Europe her peace on an honest and equitable 
basis. How this will come about depends upon the 
spirit of the various peoples. Germany did not want 
this war, it was forced upon her. Austria felt it as a 
national necessity ; it surely did not want it. France 
did not want the war ; there was too much at stake. 
England did not wish the war, because she could have 
been absolutely contented with the state of Europe be- 
fore the outbreak of the war. It was the Pan-Slavic 
tendency that got the better of saner views of the Rus- 
sian Czar that started the ball rolling. In this light it 
is needless to ask whether the differences between Aus- 
tria and Servia could have been arbitrated or not. They 
are questions of national existence and honor which do 
not lend themselves to arbitration. The Pan-Slavic 
theory which wants to bring every Slav under the rule 
of the Czar is threatening to break up Austria and 
even wipe it off the European slate. That Servia was 
used as a wedge and driven into his neighbor's living 
body, the documents attached to the Austrian ulti- 
matum prove this conclusively. 

It is equally useless to try to prove that Germany 
committed a great wrong by breaking Belgian's neu- 
trality. Mr. Gladstone settles that question once for 
all in the negative and Sir Edward Grey is with him. 

All this is a very sad state of affairs and has been 
leading to very serious consequences. But it is of no 
use to stickle at incidents in order to shirk the great 
issue. The great issue has been and is now whether the 
Slav is to rule from the Japanese Sea to Berlin and 
further west, or whether Germany, even fighting with 
her civilized Western neighbors, is to stand up to main- 
tain European civilization and save it from the Rule 
of the Knout. 



GERMANY AND THE WAR 



19 



A REPLY TO LORD BRYCE 



International Treaties and Making of "White Books" 



When I first came to New York about thirty years 
ago in quest of business training and a general educa- 
tion abroad, there were two books that then had newly 
appeared which guided me in my endeavors to be- 
come familiar with American ideals and institutions. 
One book was Carl Schurz's "Henry Clay," and the 
other James Bryce's "The American Commonwealth." 
Both books made very deep impressions on me, and I 
felt indebted to the authors ever since. 

Mr. Bryce's splendid career has now found a fitting 
end in his being called into the House of Lords, but 
his love and his likings are still American, as are some 
of his ideals. And so he has now let himself be heard 
in the New York press on the all-pervading topic of 
the war. 

Mr. Bryce has been against the war. He has worked 
for many years in the interest of a good understanding 
between Germany and England and has given to this 
task much time and thought. I have come across his 
work often enough. For five years and more I have 
been annually visiting England, receiving English visit- 
ors of all walks of life with the one purpose, and, as 
I can say without indiscretion with the full concur- 
rence of my government, in trying to smooth out the 
somewhat ruffled relations and put the two peoples, the 
strongest in Europe, on a friendly basis, in all sincer- 
ity and with no ulterior aims. So what has happened 
has been a great disappointment to Lord Bryce, to my- 
self and to the German Government, and I can well 
understand the outburst of the Imperial Chancellor, 
reported by Sir Edward Goschen, that the policy to 
which he had devoted himself since his accession to 
office had tumbled down like a house of cards. 

.^nd that is the attitude of most well-meaning Ger- 
mans; I dare say of the great majority of my people; 
and of its government, I can, as a member of the Ger- 
man Ministry for four years and as a close friend of 
most of the members of the present administration, 
voucli for this fact. I have got to say this because 
Mr. Bryce, in his admirable argument, takes his text 
from the book of Von Bernhardi, which has been widely 
circulated in this country as proving the reckless, hos- 
tile and immoral sense of the German people ; that they 
believe might is right ; that they revel in the greatness 
of war, which made them the authors of the present 
world struggle. And I can say to Lord Bryce what 
he himself, in his great endeavor for fairness, hints at, 
that neither Von Bernhardi nor the followers of the 
school of Treitschke nor the disciples of Nietzsche are 



the guiding spirits of the conscientious and painstaking 
men that conduct the affairs of Germany. Neither are 
their teachings the gospel of the German voter — fully -v 
one-third of the German population, as represented by 
the ballot, is Socialist, has never voted a budget on ac- 
count of the war expenditure contained therein ; has 
been preaching internationalism, republican ideas and a 
state of the future on communistic lines. More than 
one-third of the German population is Catholic, polit- 
ically organized for the upholding of the equal rights 
of Catholics with Protestants, true children to their 
Roman Church. They are certainly not imbued with 
the un-Christian idea of the superman, and I, there- 
fore, do not consider Lord Bryce justified in connect- 
ing the German people, and its attitude toward the war, 
with Mr. von Bernhardi and men cited by him. 

Book Condemned in Qermany. 

The book when it appeared of course made some 
stir in Germany, but it was widely condemned for its '' 
very extreme views and as likely to lead to some mis- 
understanding of the German feeling. 

Gen. von Bernhardi, who is not a common person- 
ality, thought he had reason to write his book because 
of the efifeminate tendencies that he saw in Germany; 
because of the materialistic trend of life and the strife ^ 
for wealth that he observed; because of the lack of 
proportion between the growing German population 
and its territory ; because of the small share she had 
in such countries oversea that might lend themselves to 
colonization or could secure trade. He saw how this 
world had been divided up since 1870; how the French, 
with 39,000,000 inhabitants in the home country and 
207,000 square miles, had been adding an oversea 
empire of nearly 3,000,000 square miles and nearly 
60,000,000 people ; how England, having 45,000,000 
population in the home country and 120,000 square 
miles, had been adding 3,200,000 square miles with 
about 95,000,000 people in the same period; how 
Russia had taken nearly all of the continent of Asia 
north of the neutrality line drawn by the English-Rus- 
sian treaty of 1907 ; how Japan had been doubling its 
territory in habitable and fertile country and gaining 
influence over twice as much in Manchuria, which it 
practically controls; how even Belgium, of only 11,000 
square miles and a home population of 7,500,000, ac- 
quired the Congo, with 900,000 square miles and 9,000,- 
000 natives ; while Germany, with 208,000 square miles ^ 
at home and 65,000,000 people, got about 1,100,000 / 

V 



26 



GERMANY AND THE WAR 



square miles with a population of 13,000,000 people, 
almost all of which was tropical land unfit for colon- 
ization, half of it arid land unfit for production. I 
know the story of that struggle because I have stood 

Vj in it. 

It is wrong to accuse Germany of coveting its neigh- 

j bors' territory, but in the lands newly acquired by 
Europeans she felt that she had not her due share. 

England Always Stood in the Way. 

When I was in England talking "good understand- 
ing" my friends used to say: "Dear fellow, it's all very 
well, but then, with your fast increasing population, 
66,000,000, where formerly only 40,000,000 lived, you 
will overflow some day, and that is the day we are 
afraid of." But when, in reply to this argument, Ger- 
mans sought to get some share in the undivided part 
of the world, get some sphere of influence, it was in- 

X variably England who stood in her way and invariably 
frustrated any attempt of Germany to better her posi- 
tion. This is the story of Morocco, which she played 
into the hands of the French, who have no need for 
expansion. This happened in Persia and Mesopotamia, 
where Germany looked only for a field of commercial 
endeavors, to permit Germany some slight advantage 
which the English were convinced she must have or 
flow over. 

This British attitude is best expressed in the words 
of a member of the House of Lords that he spoke to 
me in 1908: "It is a fixed policy of Great Britain, ever 
since the egregious blunder committed in returning the 
Ionian Islands, that she will never part with an island 
or harbor she has ever laid hands on." 

That is the attitude as regards colonial expansion. 
Now comes their attitude toward trade. 

England declares that the empire is a free-trade 
country and that all the peoples can do business with 
her on the same terms without preference to British 
goods. That is true as long as it lasts, and if Mr. 
Chamberlain had had his way, England would now be 
protective. But it isn't even true. It is only true as 
regards England herself. 

British Preferential Tariffs. 

The imperialism that has been fostered for years 
and years has caused preferential tariTs to be intro- 
duced in all the British dominions up to t^t, per cent, 
in Canada, 15 and 10 per cent, in the Cape and Aus- 
tralia. The closing of the Indian market to free trade 
has been demanded as late as 1913. The Persian mar- 
ket m the north has been closed by Russia in breach 
of all treaties. German goods are systematically being 
driven out from Egypt under British direction. So 
Von Bernhardi felt that Germany was being fettered 
m the development of her population bv want of ade- 
quate oversea possessions that could make a home for 
white men and in the extension of its industry that 
could only keep the people busy at home. 

This British policy would mean that Germany would 
have to send her people out into English or other coun- 
tries, lose them to the German nationality and make 
them subjects of other States. It was not that Ger- 
many coveted by force or by treaty any English pos- 



Ni 



session or French possession, but she found herself in 
the division of the free parts of the world against the 
fence while at the same time her markets got nearer 
and nearer. Von Bernhardi felt with a great many 
Germans that they were intentionally being provoked 
that they would be forced to fight one day for their 
very existence. That is why men like Bernhardi tried 
to arouse the sleepers, awake the country, by preach- 
ing the necessity of war and its ethics. He felt fur 
ther that war was as unpalatable to the Germans as to 
other nations, and he therefore pictured the greatness 
and the necessity of it. His teachings are not new. 
In England and America Walter Bagehot is revered as 
a great economist and patriot. Read what he says ■ 
Conquest improved mankind by the intermixture of 
strengths. The armed truce which was then called 
peace improved them by the competition of training and 
the consequent creation of new power." And further 
on: "Yet on the whole the energy of civilization grows 
by the coalescence of strength and by the competition 
of strengths. You will find this in his work "Physics 
and Politics" in the chapter entitled "The Use of Con- 
flict." So Von Bernhardi did not describe the Ger- 
man people as they were but as he wanted them to 
become; he doesn't reproduce the policy of the German 
people. 

But the argument is introduced by Lord Bryce to 
show the teaching of might is right in Germany and 
that as a consequence the breaking of the Belgian 
neutrality on that question has led Great Britain into 
war, and he bases his argument on the expressions in 
the so-called White Books. To these White Books 
Americans give a great deal of credit. I cannot fol- 
low. 1 know how they are made up. 

How White Books Are Made Up. 

They generally show the correspondence of two 

States in times of peace, and the utmost pains are 

, taken on both sides to eliminate such correspondence 

j as does not serve the purpose for which the White 

J Book IS issued-generally to give desired impressions 

of a certain situation. I cannot imagine that White 

Books m time of war should be edited on any other 

principles. So, of course, everything is left out that 

does not appear useful. 

You can see that in the English White Book There 
IS a dispatch from Sir Edward Goschen to Sir Edward 
Grey, dated August 8, issued as an addendum to the 
V\ hite Book issued earlier in the month. On August 8 
Sir Edward Goschen was already in London The 
despatch has possibly been published to get in the 
"scrap of paper" expressions of the Chancellor But 
there IS another addition. Sir Maurice de Bunsen who 
left \ lenna about August 10, makes a despatch dated 
September i, relating conversations and happenings 
that, if they had been important, and such they s&emed 
to be, ought to have been report(<e while he was in 
\ lenna and not in London, three weeks after his de- 
parture. 

The Russian White Book contains the correspond- 
ence between the Czar and Prince Alexander of Servia 
but where, may I ask, is in the English White Book the 
•Wilhe-Georgie" and "Nickie" correspondence showin<r 
the endeavors of Germanv for peace? And where in 



GERMANY AND THE WAR 



21 



the Russian White Book are the telegraphic entreaties 
of the Czar to the Emperor to intervene? Where does 
that correspondence appear from England to Russia 
whereby England shows Russia a number of days be- 
fore the declaration of war that it would sustain 
France at a time when there wasn't any thought of the 
breach of Belgian neutrality? 

That such assurance was given to France is proved 
by a letter of the Belgian Minister in St. Petersburg 
to his home government, dated July 30. This Belgian 
Minister says that there can be no doubt that Germany 
has taken the greatest pains, as well in St. Petersburg 
as in Vienna, to find practicable means to avoid a gen- 
eral conflict, but that she found on the one hand the 
obstinacy of the Vienna Cabinet to taking a step back- 
ward, and on the other hand the distrust of the Cabi- 
net at St. Petersburg as regards the assurances of 
Austria that she would only punish Servia and not take 
possession of it. 

There are in the Russian White Book despatches 
that show the Russian tendency carefully veiled in the 
other white papers, for instance, that Russia could not 
allow Austria to proceed because of the consequential 
Austrian preponderance in the Balkans or of the shaken 
European equilibrium and of German hegemony in Eu- 
rope if Russia had not her way. 

French Guns at Liege Before War. 

There is a very lengthy correspondence in the Bel- 
gian Gray Book showing the French attitude and the 
Belgian attitude. It is extraordinarily lengthy, and yet 
what would Airrerican readers say if they knew that 
as early as July 30 French guns were in Liege, where 
they have been captured alongside of French officers 
and soldiers? Such is stated in a letter written to Mr. 
Lehman, house superintendent of the Beecher Memo- 
rial Building, from his brother in Germany, who has 
been on the ground. What would they think if it was 
proved, as it is recited in the semi-official government 
journal, that two wounded Frenchmen had been found 
in Namur who said that their regiment, the Forty-fifth, 
was brought to Namur as early as July 30? 

In the Evening Post of to-day a lady from Boston 
relates on good authority the landing of British marines 
in Ostend on the 30th of July. 

What credence will Americans then give to such 
White Books? 

The White Book further does not say what the atti- 
tude of the various members of the British Government 
has been during the crisis and does not tell you that 
Mr. Burns and Lord Morley and Sir Trevelyan, three 
Ministers, disagreed with the British Cabinet and step- 
ped out of the Cabinet, and it is currently reported that 
Mr. Bryce did not like that attitude either. It does 
not tell you what the Belgian Charge d'Affaires reports 
to his Government, that the assurance that England 
gave the French before July 30 to maintain her has 
given enormous w^ht and has contributed not a little 
to giving the Russian war party full sway. It con- 
tinues: "There have been diverging opinions in the 
Cabinet meetings of to-day. The publication of mo- 
bilization has been delayed." Then the report con- 
tinues : "A change has been produced. The war party 
has got the upper hand and this morning at 4 o'clock 
mobilization has been ordered." 



So by giving France the assurance that she would 
sustain her, by communicating with St. Petersburg be- 
fore the Belgian question ever arose, the scales have 
been turned and it is England who has been directly j 
responsible for Russian mobilization and thereby for / 
the commencement of the war. The war party did not 1 
mobilize for the purpose of mediation, but the war 
party, as its name implies, mobilized for war. 

Belgian Neutrality a Pretext. 

All this is not in the White Book. I have already 
explained the attitude of Sir Edward Grey as regards 
Belgium. It now appears that England would go to 
war anyway if France supported Russia, and that the ^ 
violation of Belgian neutrality has been only a pretext, 
as shown by the published despatch in the English 
White Book in which Sir Edward Grey very coolly 
says : 

"Mr. Cambon asked me what we should say about 
the violation of the neutrality of Belgium. I said we 
were considering whether we should declare the viola- 
tion of Belgian neutrality to be casus belli." 

That does not sound as though the honor of Eng- 
land was considered at stake; just as little as Sir Ed- 
ward Grey's quotation from Mr. Gladstone's speech, 
but it was the effective moral attitude that he was seek- 
ing. If it is true that French troops have been in Liege 
and Namur, and I see no reason to impeach the testi- 
mony given above, then Belgian neutrality was not 
violated by Germany at all ; it was violated by France 
and Belgium itself. The treaty of neutrality means 
that troops of all nations should be kept out of a neu- 
tral country. It is not only a pledge that the guaran- 
tors will protect neutrality ; it is also a pledge that the s, 
guaranteed nation will keep neutrality. 

I come now to the sacredness of treaties. Treaties 
must be sacred, and Germany has never been charged 
with violating treaties. It has never proclaimed, ex- 
cept in the Belgian case, that necessity justified the 
breaking of treaties. It has deeply regretted and de- 
plored it. But what is the English record since the 
war broke out? It is astounding. There is a British 
proclamation, issued when two Turkish warships that 
happened to be on the Tyne when the war broke out 
were taken, "that England had this right in accord- 
ance with the recognized principle of the right and 
supreme duty to insure national safety in time of war." 
This is the principle where right is might. Further : 

Egypt is an independent State under the suzerainty 
of the Sultan. There are special diplomatic agents of 
all countries at the court of the Khedive ; the rights of 
the foreigners are guaranteed by the London Declara- 
tion of 1885, to which England is a party. Yet the 
German diplomatic representatives, by the command of 
Great Britain, have been driven out of Cairo, in breach 
of neutrality and international treaties. Morocco is 
under French protection and the rights of foreigners 
guaranteed by the Algeciras protocol and by the Ger- 
man-French arrangement of 191 1. Yet the Sultan was 
forced to send the German diplomatic representative — 
mind, not the consul — his passports, and he was com- 
pelled to leave within three hours amid the derisive 
laughter of French oflScers. 



22 



GERMANY AND THE WAR 



China's Rights Ignored. 

China is a neutral and independent country. Yet the 
Japanese, operating in conjunction with the French 
and EngHsh troops, seized the railway, German private 
property, i6o miles long, under the pretext that it 
might be used to give the Germans succor from the 
interior of China. Chinese territory has been violated 
right and left; the Chinese have protested; Japan has 
declared their protest was an unfriendly act, which 
meant war, and the protest has been withdrawn from 
sheer helplessness. 

Italy is an independent nation, bound by a sacred 
treaty of alliance to Germany and Austria. She would 
have been compelled to go to war for Germany to help 

1 her if she had recognized that the war was an aggres- 
J sive war, as it has been, on the part of France, Eng- 
"* land and Russia. What does Mr. Churchill say in ex- 

I cuse for his egging Italy on to break solemn obliga- 
tions, which certainly imply neutrality in case of war, 
holding out the great advantages that British absolute 
supremacy in the Mediterranean means for Italy ? Oh, 
the English case presenting itself now in the light of 
newer developments is not good and even for Lord 
Bryce it is difficult if not impossible to give it a decent 

I appearance. 

The articles such as Lord Bryce's are written for 
the benefit of the American public. They cater to 
America in all possible ways. But if Americans wish to 
know what they really think about them they should 
read the English papers. I quote from the London 
Times of the 23d of last month : "It always must be 
remembered that the majority of Americans have but 
the haziest idea of the menaces of European politics." 

England's Buffer States. 

But there is a redeeming feature in Mr. Bryce's argu- 
ment when he speaks of the usefulness of the little na- 
tions to science and the arts and humanity on the 
whole. England likes to have Belgium and other small 
States as buffers and if need be pin-pricks to other 
neighbors, and so a beautiful theory has been estab- 



lished, originally, it seems, by Mr. Lloyd George in his 
speech delivered on September 20, and now taken up 
by Mr. Bryce. Mr. Lloyd George's fiery and excitable 
temperament is noted. Mr. Bryce tries to deepen the 
argument by skilfully playing on the American gener- 
osity against smaller nations. Lloyd George is coarser, 
he makes the Russian Slav say: "You lay hands on that 
little fellow and I will tear your ramshackle empire 
limb from limb!" All that is very much what the Rus- 
sians did say and why there could not be peace. 

Mr. Bryce compares the amount of genius produced 
with the size of the country from whence it originates. 
He says that the little States have been the most potent 
factors in promoting culture and literature, and cites 
the Greeks, Swiss, Scandinavians, the United States in 
the days of Washington and the small German States 
when they produced Kant and Lessing, Goethe, Hegel, 
and proved that they all came from small States. Very 
well, but what hope is there for the United States to- 
day of ever producing a genius? If Mr. Bryce can- 
not allow the chance of raising geniuses to the United 
States on account of its size, it is raising level-headed 
people enough who will appreciate this amusing argu- 
ment. 

The main point is that Mr. Bryce does not say a 
word for his country or for the English attitude. He 
writes a scholarly article which makes beautiful read- 
ing and is the act of a patriot who will not leave his 
country in a difficult situation. He did not like to write 
the letter, I am sure, because Mr. Bryce feels as I do ; 
that England, calling in in its struggle for the mainte- 
nance of her high-handed policy against Germany the 
Russians and the Servians and the Montenegrins and 
the Japanese and the Indians and all sorts of Africans 
as well as the Portuguese, who vie in illiteracy with the 
Russians, more than 70 per cent, not knowing how to 
read or write, it could not claim to fight for the free- 
dom of the world, the advance of culture, the sacred- 
ness of treaties and the high ideals expressed in our 
common faith. Mr. Bryce knows as well as I do that 
these are all but words used to cover big materialism 
and selfish policy. 



GERMANY AND THE WAR 



DEFENDS GERMANY'S TREATY 

RECORD 



Dr. Dernburg, Answering Dr. Eliot, Assails England's Past — Says Belgium's 

Neutrality Was One-sided 



Prof. Eliot is conferring a great favor on the expo- 
nents of the German side in the present struggle in 
explaining to them what he thinks of the so-called 
anti-German feeling in the United States. I am sure 
his views will be read also in Germany with a great 
deal of attention, although he will certainly not remain 
unchallenged in nearly all essential points. The com- 
pliment that Dr. Eliot pays to the German people as 
a whole must be specially appreciated, the more so as 
it comes from a scientist whose great authority is 
equally recognized on both sides of the Atlantic. 

The anti-German feeling, according to Dr. Eliot, 
takes its source from the American objection to the 
committal of a nation to grave mistakes by a permanent 
executive. But then, with the exception of France, all 
the warring nations have permanent executives, profes- 
sional diplomatists; all their affairs are conducted in 
\ secret, and all their rulers have the power, including 
the president of France, to embroil their nations in war. 
The German Emperor is in this respect certainly more 
restricted than the other heads of state, and I have 
not read that the declaration of war has been expressly 
sanctioned by the English Parliament, and certainly the 
mobilization of the English fleet that took place in 
July, and the mobilization of the Russian army that 
took place at the same time, have not even been brought 
to the knowledge of the respective Parliaments. 
When, therefore, the same conditions prevail in all^ the 
warring states, how can they be made the reason for 
such anti-German feeling ? 

The same objection holds good with the American 
antipathy against the power of rulers to order mobili- 
zation or declare war in advance without consulting the 
Parliament, to which I have only to say that the Eng- 
lish fleet was mobilized without consulting the English 
Parliament, while in Germany the Bundesrat, the rep- 
resentatives of the Federal States, as well of the 
Federal Diets, has been duly consulted. I may add 
that also the party leaders of the Reichstag, which 
could not be convoked earlier than two days after the 
declaration of war, have been continuously informed 
and consulted. 

Against the next paragraph, where Prof. Eliot com- 
plains of the secrecy of European diplomacy and of 



international treaties and understandings, the same ob- 
jection must be made. The state described here as 
particular to Germany prevails in all European coun- 
tries, and neither the treaty of the French-Russian 
alliance, nor the arrangements of the Triple Entente 
have ever been submitted to the French or British 
Parliaments. 

As regards the American attitude towards arma- 
ments, I purposely refrain from adducing the Amer- 
ican example into my argument, much as 1 could show 
that with a very large part of the American nation the 
idea of defending the American coast against any in- 
vader and the maintenance of a strong Pan-American 
policy, if need be by arms, is just as fixed a tenet as the 
German idea that the Fatherland should be held safe 
from invasion or destruction by the will and the 
strength of its people. England has always held the 
same, if not through her army so through her navy, 
and so did the rest of Europe ; and there is no argu- 
ment to be gotten from that for an anti-German feeling. 

No Seizure of Schleswig-Holstein. 

Americans object to the extension of territory by 
force. Germany has never done that, if one goes back 
as far as Prof. Eliot wishes to go. Mr. Eliot is abso- 
lutely mistaken as to the history of the incorporation 
of Schleswig-Holstein into Prussia. Schleswig-Hol- 
stein was a Dual-Dukedom, had never belonged to 
Denmark, but having a duke, was under the sway of 
the King of Denmark as long as he belonged to the 
elder line of the house of Oldenburg. This elder line 
was extinct when King Christian VIII. died without 
male issue. His successor wanted to incorporate the 
two German dukedoms into Denmark. Then the people 
stood up and expressed the desire to remain with the 
German Federation to which it had always belonged, 
and there it is now, of its own free will. The natural 
dividing line between Denmark and Germany, however, 
is the river Eider. There are about 30,000 Danes 
south of the Eider, who have been absorbed against 
their will, a thing that can never be avoided and that 
has sometimes given Prussia a little trouble. 

As to Alsace-Lorraine, the facts are known to be v 
that it had belonged to Germany until it had been taken, 



I 



GERMANY AND THE WAR 



against the will of the people, by France under Louis 
XIV., and it was returned to Germany as a matter of 
right, more than three-quarters of the population being 
of German descent and speaking the German language. 
But let me ask in return, Mr. Eliot, when did ever 
V in her political career England consult the will of the 
/ people when she took a country? Can he say that 
when England tore the treaty of Majuba Hill, like "a 
scrap of paper," and made war on the Boers? Did she 
consult the people of Cyprus in 1878? Does he know 
of any plebiscite in India? Has she consulted the Per- 
sians, or has France consulted the people of Morocco, 
or of Indo-China? Italy the people of Tripoli? Since 
Germany has not acted here in any other way forty 
years ago than all the other nations, why does Mr. 
Eliot consider the American people justified in taking 
anti-German views for reason of such an old date, 
while he forgives the nations of the party he favors for 
much more recent infringement of his rule? 

Belgian Neutrality One>Sided. 

"Americans object to the violation of treaties." So 
do the Germans. We have always kept our treaties, 
and mean to do so in the future. The fact with Bel- 
gium is that her neutrality was very one-sided ; that, 
as can be proved, as early as the 25th of July Liege 
was full of French soldiers, that Belgian fortifications 
were all directed against Germany, and that, for years 
past, it was the Belgian press that outdid the French 
press in attacks against Germany. But I can give Mr. 
Eliot here some authority that he has so far not chal- 
lenged. When Sir Edward Grey presented the Eng- 
lish case in the House of Commons on the 3rd of 
August, he declared that the British attitude was laid 
down by the British government in 1870, and he ver- 
bally cited Mr. Gladstone's speech, in which he said he 
could not subscribe to the assertion that the simple 
fact of the existence of a guarantee was binding on 
every party, irrespective altogether of the particular 
position in which it may find itself at the time when 
the occasion for acting on the guarantee arises. He 
called that assertion a "stringent and impracticable" 
view of the guarantee, and the whole treaty a "com- 
plicated question." So Mr. Gladstone, and with him 
Sir Edward Grey, has held the Belgian neutrality treaty 
not binding on every party, when it was against the 
interest which the particular situation dictated, when 
the war broke out. It was the interest of Great 
Britain to maintain the treaty, and that is why she 
acted. It was against German interest to maintain the 
treaty, and that is why she broke it. That is the British 
and not the German theory, and I could verv well rest 
my case here. My theory is with the German Chan- 
cellor, that I greatly regret the necessity of violating 



I the Belgian neutrality, after Belgium had chosen to 
I repel the German overtures for a free passage. 

It is quite certain that the breach of the Belgian 
neutrality by Germany was used in Great Britain as a 
powerful instrument to influence the public sentiment. 
Every war must be borne by national unity, and it is 
I the duty of the nation's leaders to secure such unity 
'• by all practicable means. But has it been forgotten 
that the attitude of Sir Edward Grey caused such ex- 
cellent men as Lord Morley, John Burns, and Sir John 
Trevelyan to leave the Cabinet, where they were 
looked upon as the best and most liberal members of 
the ruling combination? Bernard Shaw says of Great 
\ Britain that she has never been at a loss for an efifect^ 
■ ive moral attitude. Such an attitude is a powerful 
weapon in diplomatical and actual warfare, and it must 
be resorted to, if the necessity arises. But that cannot 
blind us to the fact that the British government allowed 
the political interest to be the paramount consideration 
in this Belgian neutrality matter. The German in- 
terest for not acting on the guarantee was just as 
strong as the English to act for it. 

The proof is found in the English "White Paper." I 
cite the famous reprint of The Times (Dispatch No. 
L48 of Aug. 2, to Paris). Here Sir Edward Grey 
says: "We were considering whether we should de- 
clare violation of Belgian neutrality to be a casus belli." 

"Treaties Must Not Be Overrated." 

I am an ardent believer in all international arrange- 
ments to prevent difficulties and wars between nations, 
and I rejoice with the American people in the signal 
success this policy is now having in this country. But 
international treaties must not be overrated. There are 
questions which cannot be settled by them. It is too 
difficult to explain just the nature of such situations 
as arose in Europe, so I may be permitted for once to 
ask this question : "Does Prof. Eliot believe that the 
majority of the American people think that the unwrit- 
ten Monroe Doctrine could be made the subject of 
arbitration, whether it had a right to exist or to be 
enforced? I must emphatically say, no, it could not. 
It can be as little arbitrated upon as a matter of re- 
ligion or personal morals." 

Mr. Eliot thinks a happy result of the war would be 
that American institutions should prevail in Germany 
thereafter. Why should Germany only become a rep- 
resentative republic ? Does he not demand the same 
regarding Russia, England, Italy, Austria, and Japan? 
And if not, why not? 

From all this I fail to see the point in the reasons 
given by Prof. Eliot, why fair-minded Americans 
should side with the English. 



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